


Elpis Lost

by leosorrel



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Loss of Identity, Suicide Attempt, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 14:12:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leosorrel/pseuds/leosorrel
Summary: “Oh, hello. You’re here for another story, aren’t you? Sorry, Marcus refuses to tell this one. Not enough guns, he says. Which was kind of the point of it, really. Come, sit down, and let me tell you the story of the man who thought he could change Pandora for the better. “Rewrite of a previous work.@elpislost on tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

“This monster's back in town / I think we're safe for now.”

Monster - Walking On Cars   


 

The white cliffs of the Highlands gleamed in the light of the stars as they had for years, but it was different now. Once, the cold blue glow of the Hyperion space station had towered over the whole of Pandora as a testament to Handsome Jack’s overwhelming ego. Now, the red flames of Elpis reigned over the sky, like a festering wound that refuses to heal. The only sounds of the night were the screeches of stalkers as they pursued their next meal between the rocks.

The space station had crashed to the ground two years ago, destroying any power that Hyperion still held over Pandora. Along with the debris that burned up in the atmosphere, thousands of lives burned up along with it. Some people straight up died, some were left stranded on Pandora, away from their families and friends, just like it had happened with Atlas employees years before. Nobody cared, because on Pandora there was only you and your gun. It was kill or be killed. And that was just fine.

You could start your own bandit camp or become a lone traveler, armed right up to your teeth, you could build a shack out of debris and somehow make it by -- or get eaten by a skag and never have to worry about anything else for all eternity. Sooner or later you’d find others to settle with, because no matter the place, humans love to stick together, even if they’ve turned into savage beasts that cherish the smell of blood. You’d survive, somehow.

Things become a bit more complicated when your face and your voice is that of the one man everyone on the planet hated more than anything. Handsome Jack was not going to be welcomed with open arms and a mug of hot tea with crumpets. A sandwich with lead? Much more likely.

But Handsome Jack was dead. Timothy Lawrence was a poor soul who was stuck with his face and his voice, and just like Helios had burned up, so had any chance of him reintegrating into society. Ashes.

He was Handsome Jack’s first body double. The prototype. The one unlucky guy who had to get plastic surgery and a faulty voice modulator inserted into his throat to turn him into Jack. Everyone else after him had pocket watches with cloaking devices, but he was stuck like this. All because of student loans. And because Vault Hunters killed Jack two days before Timothy’s contract was up, but they couldn’t have known that.

When the inner power struggle of the corporation began, he was shoved into the dullest corner of the space station. The surgeons were always off treating someone more important, the paperwork never made it to the upper levels, and eventually Timothy was straight up told to leave and never show his face again. Another expendable asset of the corporate gearbox.

So, he did. He dyed his hair black, put on a heavy metal mask that changed his voice and left for Pandora to try and make it on his own. Though after a while, he couldn’t tell who he was anymore. When you didn’t like your original self in the first place, and then spend five years pretending to be a megalomaniac with an ego the size of a solar system, you start to forget who you really are.

In the distance he could see the windows of the Holy Spirits pub. They emitted a warm, yellow light, inviting him inside. Timothy wished he could just go inside, order a glass of whiskey and drink the night away with people who he didn't know. But he couldn’t. Not when he was the ghost of the worst thing this planet had seen.

Two long years he hadn’t spoken to anyone. At times it drove him nuts, making him hit his head against walls and wailing somewhere far away where nobody could find him. He had reached a breaking point. In desperation, he had left a note attached to the front door of the pub, asking for someone to leave him an answer. It had worked. He bought whiskey from the pub, leaving the cash in a safe place and returning for a crate of bottles the following night. He was developing a drinking problem, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. He was sure he’d die soon anyways, and he thought he’d rather not be mentally present for it.

Gravel shifted underneath the worn out soles of his boots, getting in through the holes and pricking his feet. His clothing was torn and ruined -- he hadn’t seen a Changing Station in months -- and he smelled like the backside of a skag, inside out, since the booze didn’t smell much better. He crept through the shadows, his pistol tightly clutched in his hand. 

As he walked past Hunter’s Bane, merely minutes away from the pub, he realized that the night had fallen silent. Too silent. The stalkers weren’t making any noise, not even the morbid noise of limbs being torn from a corpse could be heard.

His pace slowed, his back stiffened and he looked around. He was breaking out in cold sweat. What if he was their next meal? What if they were right behind him? Timothy wished that Athena would have been here -- for the brief time that they had worked together, he had come to know her as a level headed, disciplined warrior, amongst other things. She never showed fear. 

Still, no noise. No sign of the stalkers.

Hell, he’d be happy to see Wilhelm or Nisha, and he was terrified of both of them. Last he had seen Wilhelm, there was nothing human about him anymore. The man had went full robot, and Timothy never understood how he went that far. Plastic surgery alone had been hell, and here was a guy who just replaced his limbs with bot parts. And Nisha… Well, the less you mention Nisha, the better.

A high pitched scream rang out.

Timothy snapped his head in the direction of the sound. It was coming from Hunter’s Bane, the very heart of the stalker colony.

Someone, a young man by the sound of it, was pleading for help. After a few seconds of hesitation, Timothy hurried over to the ledge and glanced over it. The man was surrounded by three stalkers - one had his jaws clamped around his arm, the other two were trying to get a hold of his legs, but the man waved a gun in his free arm, firing wherever he could aim.

Three gunshots later the man was curled up, cradling his chewed up arm while Timothy plunged a syringe of Health Now! into his shoulder, pinning the man down with his other arm so he wouldn’t hurt himself even more. He couldn’t see much in the darkness -- the clouds had covered up the sky, leaving them in the dark -- so he listened to the man’s breathing, waiting for it to even out.

“Thank you.” the man muttered.

After two long years of not hearing even a word directed to him, a simple expression of gratitude made Timothy’s heart swell up. Two words that made him feel human for the first time in a while. Tears swelled up in his eyes, and without thinking twice, he answered.

“No problem.”

The voice of Handsome Jack made even a whisper ring out louder than a cannon shot.

The man stopped breathing for a second.

Timothy stopped breathing too.

They both bolted in opposite directions, and in the distance Timothy could hear the man scream.

“Handsome Jack is alive! Help! Somebody!” his voice was soaked with horror - the “the devil is talking to me” kind, not the “I’m being eaten alive” type of horror.

The warmth in his chest transferred itself to the tears that were running down his cheeks. He sobbed as he ran, his voice modulator malfunctioning once every few sounds, sending a small jolt of electricity through his throat, making it tighten up even more. He ran as fast as he could before they caught him and strung him up by his ankles and make him pay for crimes he hadn’t committed. Because nobody knew Timothy Lawrence. They only knew his face. They only knew Handsome Jack.


	2. Chapter 2

"Cause the secrets that I'm keeping ain't no good to me /   
When you're six feet under, all you hear are the cries."

Black Pistol Fire - "Suffocation Blues"

 

His calloused fingers traced the muzzle of his gun, flesh against uncaring metal. It was an old, rusty Jacobs revolver he’d picked up a few months ago from a rotting corpse in the Dust. It had served him well, pulling Timothy out of a few tough spots. Today it would serve him one last time.

He was going to kill himself and take Handsome Jack with him. He, and only he would be the one to get to put this last bullet into that bastard’s face. It was only fair. Jack had taken away his life, his identity, his humanity with his wicked plans, and if Timothy couldn’t get it back, he’d erase the last bits himself. On his own terms. 

He had hoped that nobody would have believed the injured man, that they would chalk up his claims of Jack being alive to adrenaline induced hallucinations. The commotion outside of his hideout told a different story.

Three Vault Hunters circled the area like ravenous vultures.

Timothy had hauled up in a cave by the Lake “Shining Horizons”. On his first night in the Highlands he had had a rather unpleasant run in with several threshers, and he’d stumbled upon the cave while frantically trying to swim out of the way of the tentacles. The cave ended right behind the waterfall, and hid him from view. The mold on the walls was a certain drawback, but beggars can’t be choosers. It wouldn’t matter soon. He’d die and let the mold disintegrate him, leaving the last ghost of Jack to disappear in the least spectacular manner he could imagine. 

He pressed his forehead against the wet wall of the cave, feeling the cold water drip down his skin, the sound of water crashing down mixing with the dull pulsation of his own blood as it rushed through his veins. He was calm. Too calm for someone about to kill themselves. Both his body and his emotions were paralyzed.

On the other side of the waterfall he could see the distorted outline of a person standing up. Boots clicked against the metal platform as they searched through the empty ammo stashes in the huts as if he was a loot midget.

They wouldn’t find him alive. He didn’t want them to. He wouldn’t let them.

They, like everyone else on this planet, had a right to shoot him on sight, and they had every right to tie him up, parade him through the towns of Pandora and then dispose of him in a grand show, if they wished so. He was a Hyperion goon, after all. He’d served Handsome Jack. Hell, he was Handsome Jack, as far as he could tell on most days.

But on the other hand… He wasn’t Jack. Not at all. He’d even said it to the man himself once, in a different life.

_ I’m not you, Jack. _

“I’m not you, Jack.” he croaked, the voice modulator malfunctioning and sending a jolt of electricity through him, as if Jack had punched him in the throat even from the other side of the grave.

He wasn’t Jack. There were nights when he’d wake in cold sweat, his brain regurgitating all the people he’d gunned down, bandit innards smeared on the white surface of Elpis, dripping down his hands. All the times he’d played God on Jack’s behalf. 

His fingers curled around the handle of the gun, knuckles turning white as he began to shake from anger and fear. The cold metal brushed against his temple…

No. He wasn’t Jack. He will make the world know that. He couldn’t leave just yet.

He dropped the gun, the noise echoing through the cave. Timothy didn’t care. He wanted the world to hear him one last time, he wanted the Vault Hunters to find him and the message he’d leave so they could go back and tell everyone that it wasn’t Jack. That it was Timothy Lawrence.

He searched through his pockets, his fingers fumbling and cramped, looking for his knife. It was an rusted, broken steel shiv with a sharp edge and an old rag wrapped on it to substitute a handle. Without wincing he cut his left palm, smeared the blood on the damp wall of the cave and grabbed the revolver from the ground. The metal twisted the skin on his temple as he turned his arm. He pulled the trigger.

 

His ears were ringing and it felt like his head had been split open. Dull, yet overwhelming waves of pain washed over him. He was on the damp floor. A blue light was shining right by his eyes.

“You think the logical / Thing to do right now is to / Kill yourself, my friend?” an unfamiliar voice said to him. Timothy didn’t answer. He turned his head to the side and squinted, trying to focus his vision.

The smeared letters on the wall were slowly dripping down, distorting the word he had written there with his own blood. 

 

“Tim.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Devil's gonna get you if I don't first / Take my body and do your worst”

Do Your Worst - Rival Sons

 

Timothy would have never thought that being strapped to a human-sized dartboard in a shooting range of a gun shop would have been one of the most comfortable positions he’d been during his life, but here he was, feeling quite content with his situation. After several years of living in skag shit piles, any heated building felt like a luxury, even if he had three different guns pointing at him and the place smelled like burnt flesh.

The people holding said guns were certain that he is the biggest skag shit pile in the whole visible universe. Perhaps it was too early to get comfortable…

He blinked a few times, his sight fuzzy. He’d woken up mere minutes ago, already suspended above ground, and across from him were three Vault Hunters. Two of them he knew from old Hyperion posters - Brick and Mordecai.

Brick was a large, burly man, his fists about the same size as Timothy’s head. He didn’t seem too intelligent, which was quite common on Pandora, plus, Timothy’s presence made him look like he was having a toothache.

Mordecai was a polar opposite - small and scrawny. Even Timothy, who was malnourished had more meat on his bones. The man was akin a toy skeleton puppet, the kind you would tug by strings to make it do silly dances… Except he had a gun, so pulling his strings wasn’t advisable. He couldn’t see Mordecai’s eyes underneath his glasses, but the man hadn’t moved the whole time Timothy was awake, clutching a rifle in one hand and a bottle of booze in the other.

In between them stood a tall, dark figure. Timothy couldn’t tell who - what - they were. He only knew that it - they - had four fingers on both hands and his face was a display. He didn’t feel like he was in the position to speculate about it, even if his tongue was aching to make a quip about it.

_No, you aren’t Jack. Keep your mouth shut._

The dark figure stood there, their arms crossed, their face displaying three red dots, like a loading screen. There was something hidden in one of their hands, but Timothy couldn’t tell what it was, though it didn’t take a genius to guess - it had to be a weapon.

The door in the further end of the room sprung open and a red-haired woman walked in, her back facing everyone else as she spoke to someone out of view.

“Marcus, you’ve got vending machines in every shithole across the planet! We aren’t hurting your business, this won’t take long!” she said to whoever was behind the door, and the only answer she got back was an anguished groan.

“Alright,” she turned around on her heels, pressing her hands into her hips, her stare burning through his skin like a pair of flamethrowers. He didn’t need introductions. Lilith, the one who had branded Jack’s face with the sign of the Vault all those years ago.

“Never thought I’d see your damned face again,” Lilith “greeted” him.

“You’re not dead yet only, and only because of Zero here.” the dark figure flashed a red zero upon being mentioned. “They think there is more to you than it seems.”

“Thank you.” Timothy muttered, nodding at Zero. Everyone in the room raised their eyebrows.

“Did that sound insincere? Damn the Hyperion engineers, they can’t do anything right, can they?”

Bad move. He sounded exactly like the asshole he was trying so hard not to be.

“Sorry, sorry, force of habit.”

“Habit? Bad at not being yourself, Jackass?”

Oh, the irony.

“You don’t have a pocket watch to disguise you, and there isn’t a mask on your face, and there is no Vault symbol, so Zero got us to call Athena.” Lilith said, crossing her arms. “You better be worth the trouble, we’re ruining her honeymoon with this.”

“Honeymoon? Athena?” it was Tim’s turn to raise his eyebrows. Athena? Married? To whom…Wait.

”Janey Springs? Athena? Are they here?” he blurted out, a sheepish smile appearing on his face. He wanted to see Athena so badly, see how she’s changed after all these years… It was awkward for all of them. Nobody expected Jack’s face to be able to produce anything besides arrogance.

Athena walked into the room without saying a word, her stare as cold as ever, but her step was lighter, she seemed more invigorated than Timothy had ever seen her. Being with Janey was clearly doing her a lot of good. At least she had had it better than Tim did.

“Athena, can you tell us why we shouldn’t feed him to skags?” Lilith asked.

Timothy and Athena stared at each other. The room fell silent, you could hear a bullet casings fall on the ground in the other room.

“Prove to me that you aren’t Jack.”

_Fuck. Oh. What do I say? Oh._

_Idea._

_She’ll kill me for this._

“Can everyone leave first?” he knew the answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask out of courtesy, maybe she’d take it into account before punching him.

“No.” Athena replied, raising her hand, silencing the others before they could get angry.

“I’m sorry.” Timothy said, took a deep breath, shut his eyes, trying to lean away.

“I once walked into you and Janey using your Oz kits to have s-”

Athena’s hand clamped around his mouth. He opened his eyes to see her cheeks turn as red as Lilith’s hair. Zero’s display was flashing between a grin and a LOL.

“He’s not Jack.”

With little ceremony Athena untied Timothy from the target board. His ankles gave out the moment they touched the ground, turning sideways and making him trip. He would have landed on his face, if not for Athena’s strong arm on his shoulder, pulling him back up.

“You sure?” Lilith asked, a tinge of disappointment in her voice.

Everyone wanted to kill Jack, seven times over if they could, and him not being Jack was ruining their day a little bit more.

“Yes.”

“I still don’t see why we shouldn’t kill him.”

The room went silent once again. Brick’s guns were pointed at his stomach, Mordecai’s trigger finger was twitching. Timothy’s limbs became heavier, his back slumped and he stared down at his toes. The tension was seeping through every crack in the walls, through every pore of his skin.

“Do it already, then.”

Zap. The voice modulator malfunctioned again. This time was different - it wasn’t one painful shock, it was continuous. The muscles in his throat contracted, making him clamp his hands around his neck, gasping for air. No luck. He coughed and dry heaved, trying to cough the modulator up, even if he knew it was pointless. It was firmly attached to his skin, but at this moment he could only form one coherent thought at a time.

_I don’t want to die._

The world around became even more of a blur. There was screaming, running, sharp pain in his throat as he threw himself against the walls. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t, he couldn’t-

“Stop, little man.” Brick said right into his ear as Timothy could feel his feet losing contact with the floor. Someone was holding him in the air, crushing him in the process. He made one last desperate attempt to breathe.

The flow of oxygen returned to his brain, switching his senses back on. His gag reflex was the first to awake, as he promptly vomited onto someone’s hand. Three fingers were in his mouth. They certainly weren’t his. He could taste stomach acid, gasoline and white spirit.

“Do I need to remind you that I ain’t a real doctor?” a different male voice said somewhere above him. Slowly, he opened his eyes and rolled onto his side, watching black boots walk away from him. He didn’t get to dwell on the shoes for long, as someone pulled him up from the floor and tossed him onto a chair.

“Whatever you did, worked.” a relieved sigh came from Lilith.

“Y’all should clean him up and bring him around to me as soon as you can. He might not make it again.”

“Sure thing, Zed.”

“Can you please stop throwing me around?” Timothy whined out, rubbing his throbbing neck.

“Only when you stop falling over.” responded Athena. He felt hands settle down on his shoulders. Instead of inflicting pain, the hand gently straightened his back.

“Don’t lose your dignity.” it was Athena, standing behind him.

“Yeah, thanks. Kind of hard to do that when… Never mind. Sorry. Thanks.”

“Okay, not Jack, care to explain what the hell that was?” Lilith approached him, her hands moved to her hips now.

“Instead of a cloaking device, I had full facial surgery that turned me into Jack. Including a voice modulator. It’s old and malfunctions a lot. Never this bad.” he tried to explain, trying to keep it brief in fears of another seizure coming up.

“Who are you, then?” asked Mordecai.

“I am not legally allowed to tell you that, but it rhymes with Jimothy.” Timothy’s answer was a reflex by now. He could see a realization dawn upon Lilith.

“Jack’s dead, your contract is over. Cough it up, Jimothy.”

“I really don’t think I can, I…”

“Say it!” Lilith raised her voice.

“He can’t.” Athena answered in his place. “There is a bomb imbedded in his face.”

“A what?” Everyone except the two from Elpis exclaimed.

“It’s true. It would go off, if I said my name. At least, that’s what it said in the contract. I don’t want to find out if it’s true.” Timothy rambled. “I needed to pay off my student loans, and then… this happened.” he gestured at himself. He probably wasn’t the first or last person to end up in his own vomit over debt, but it didn’t make his state any less pathetic.

“You three, come with me for a moment.” Lilith said to her friends, leaving Timothy and Athena alone.

“So… You and Janey, huh? Congratulations!” he said, “I could hug you right now, but.. you know. I haven’t washed in ages. And sorry about what I said, I had no other ideas.”

“It’s fine, just don’t bring it up again.” Athena said quietly,  giving his shoulders a light squeeze.

“Sorry for ruining your honeymoon like this…”

“I was setting bored of vacationing anyhow.”

She gave him one of her rare smiles. Athena, the bad-ass gladiator who could break every bone in his body with her hands tied to her knees, smiled at a vomit-clad copy of Handsome Jack.

“I think I know someone who could help you ,Timothy. I’m not going to let them kill you.”

“Why?”

“First of all, you’re not Jack.”

Tim felt all fuzzy and warm inside. That might just have been some strange case of internal bleeding, but he decided to think of it as him feeling glad rather than actively dying. He wished he could hug her, but once again, vomit.

“Second of all…”

She never got to the second part, as Lilith walked back in.

“Alright, Timothy, if that even is your real name. We won’t kill you, for now. But you owe us an explanation.” Lilith’s voice boomed through the room.

“First you remove the voice modulator, then you can interrogate him.” Athena insisted and Tim could feel tears swell up in his eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had cared about him.


End file.
